Pika Virus

Looking at the world through a handheld screen
While imaginary monsters hover
Over the landscape, their colors vibrant

A little golden, electric rodent
The green, leafy toad with a guileful grin
Some reddish, pyromaniac lizard

The child’s mind dims, spatial awareness dies
With a soft, thoughtless glide of fingertips
Across the illuminated surface

As they toss forth virtual prison orbs
Stained red and white, divided by black bands
Designed to capture and incarcerate

Those which are considered to be wild beasts
Now commodities, property pieces
Trading tokens, pawns in an aimless game

Built from the ground up as misdirection
Guiding feckless youth and adults alike
Toward the blank isles of a fool’s paradise

While all the floor planners and programmers
Unseen hands and eyes of intelligence
Mold reality, studying movements

Through the keyholes of the camera phones
With abundant digital data streams
Profiling the planet’s population

Of boys, girls, men, women, doesn’t matter
The user’s age and sex is trivial
With people devolving to living dead

Vacant faces glued to flashy gadgets
Promoting false senses of unity
Buffering human connection instead

The tap water’s been laced with chemicals
To distract us from the house burning down
Predictably, it’s super effective